Football will be interesting

Can you feel it in the air? Sports are coming. Football will be here soon and all will be well in the world.

It should be a pretty interesting fall on the gridiron. All three teams will have new quarterbacks at the helm when they step onto the field. Travis Harris (CHS), Jalen West (North) and Devon Burton (South) are all graduated. They each have been to the go-to guys for their teams the last two years.

It will be interesting to see who steps up at each school to lead their squads. It seems likely that Trent Johnson will be the guy to step up at Crawfordsville. He will be a sophomore this season and got reps behind Harris last season. Crawfordsville will bring back a majority of their backs, but their biggest loss might be at the receiver position. PJ Schafer was Crawfordsville's big-play option last season. His 6-4 frame made him useful on all sides of the ball. Also gone from the center of the defense will be the hard-hitting Garrett Phelps.

Up North, the Chargers have a new coach (Josh Thompson) and should have quite a few new faces. In addition to losing West and a host of lineman, the Chargers graduate Chase Mahoy and Joel Kauth, two bruisers in the backfield. Alex Parsons will return after a breakout sophomore season that saw him slash through defenses from several positions on the field. Baylee Adams, a big-bodied athletic junior, should be one of the key players for North.

Southmont is in a similar position as at the beginning of last season, having lost some of their top back to graduation (Chance Brown). Nathaniel Farabee should return at the fullback position and they will have Mitch Dehne, Jarrett Todd, Wayne Highfield and a host of others to fill out the backfield. There is a bunch of talent at Southmont, but not very much experience of being the go-to guy. That was Burton for the last two seasons. The Mounties got a taste of their future last year when Burton went down with a broken leg at the beginning of October. But they were also without Dehne (also injured), who would have been their leader in Burton's absence.

This year's county crown will be decided in September. North Montgomery and Southmont play Sept. 5. In New Market. Southmont then plays at Crawfordsville on Sept. 19. Crawfordsville and North Montgomery close the county with a matchup in Linden on Sept. 26.

There's no way to know how the always-crazy football season will play out, but The Paper will be there to take you along the ride. I'll see ya out there.